I'd first point out that the contention "the races are equals" [in anything] is a statement that should be supported by positive evidence. Those of us who are reading this should know that your case isn't made simply because someone with whom you disagree has not made his. Your side of a debate isn't privileged to be any kind of default position, standing like a castle in the air, unless someone else can prove that castles can't stand upon air.

So the second presumption of the poster "TruthIsHoly" is his giving us the impression that the races must be equals without offering us any proof that it is so. His first presumption is his selection of a politically pushy name. Truth might be holy, but there are no holy sources of truth, including his keyboard or the studies he quotes from. All valid experiments are repeatable, truth is known only with some degree of confidence or other, and nobody ever has the "holy" final word on what the truth is.

Let us observe that it is not at all unreasonable for human intelligence to correlate well with brain size, or with the ratio of brain mass to body mass. We can more-or-less see that in human evolution, and we see it in primates other than humans, and we see it in mammals generally.

Let's also take cognizance of the fact that brain sizes might indeed vary racially in the same way that average skin coloring and average height do.

The claim of inequality among races isn't strange. Whether it is true or false is for an examination of relevant data to determine. But on its face it is an eminently reasonable statement.

In the United States, persons who are called "blacks" or "African-Americans" are about, on average, 25% white. That is to say, American blacks are commonly mulattoes of mixed white and black ancestry. Decades of psychometric study has provided ample information to estimate that the distribution of IQ in US-resident blacks is normal at 85±12.4, and that the distribution of IQ in US-resident whites is normal at 103±16.4.

The averages in those distributions were mentioned in "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" by Rushton and Jensen, published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. The standard deviations were taken from a 1963 study by Kennedy, Van de Riet, and White.

It has been observed that the intelligence of mulatto persons are, in the usual run of such people, correlated positively with their percentage of white ancestry.

And so, prior to any actual inspection of Richard Lynn's African data, his findings would seem consistent with an extrapolation toward the percentages of racial blackness that we can find in Africa.

Now, I notice that objections have been made regarding Lynn's methodology; specifically, he's been accused of cherry-picking. However, might I suggest that cherry-picking is something that Lynn's critics would prefer to do? To put it plainly, I suspect that perhaps Richard Lynn refrained from doing any cherry-picking, such as would have enhanced the proportion of his test subjects who were above the average in the various African countries included in his study, however those who complain about Lynn's findings would have done just that thing, if they had conducted a similar study. I think that Lynn took them as they came, in a true random sample, and that the findings that resulted have displeased those who think that certain of their beliefs are "holy truths."

DavidSims wrote:Let us observe that it is not at all unreasonable for human intelligence to correlate well with brain size, or with the ratio of brain mass to body mass. We can more-or-less see that in human evolution, and we see it in primates other than humans, and we see it in mammals generally.

The brain-to-body mass ratio (absolute brain size) is a useful predictor of the intelligence of a species, but you can't just extrapolate the principle to individuals within a species. The absolute brain size is correlated with the intelligence of a species, but that does not mean that intelligence is causally determined by brain size. Now I'm only speculating, but maybe a change in brain size is useless or even harmful unless it is accompanied by a change in the number of neurons or overal neuronal activity.http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Int8.htmlIf your hypothesis were correct, we should expect higher intelligence from people with megalencephaly.http://voices.yahoo.com/megalencephaly- ... 88259.html

But even if brain-size is a good predictor of individual intelligence, you have not shown that such differences, if existent, are genetic.

DavidSims wrote:The averages in those distributions were mentioned in "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" by Rushton and Jensen, published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. The standard deviations were taken from a 1963 study by Kennedy, Van de Riet, and White.

It has been observed that the intelligence of mulatto persons are, in the usual run of such people, correlated positively with their percentage of white ancestry.

And so, prior to any actual inspection of Richard Lynn's African data, his findings would seem consistent with an extrapolation toward the percentages of racial blackness that we can find in Africa.

Now, I notice that objections have been made regarding Lynn's methodology; specifically, he's been accused of cherry-picking. However, might I suggest that cherry-picking is something that Lynn's critics would prefer to do? To put it plainly, I suspect that perhaps Richard Lynn refrained from doing any cherry-picking, such as would have enhanced the proportion of his test subjects who were above the average in the various African countries included in his study, however those who complain about Lynn's findings would have done just that thing, if they had conducted a similar study. I think that Lynn took them as they came, in a true random sample, and that the findings that resulted have displeased those who think that certain of their beliefs are "holy truths."

DavidSims wrote:I'd first point out that the contention "the races are equals" [in anything] is a statement that should be supported by positive evidence. Those of us who are reading this should know that your case isn't made simply because someone with whom you disagree has not made his. Your side of a debate isn't privileged to be any kind of default position, standing like a castle in the air, unless someone else can prove that castles can't stand upon air.

There are vast oceans of positive evidence that "the races are equals." But for a racist ideologue only the evidence that comports with his ideology is acceptable. In fact you're the one making the extraordinary claim, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that the races are not equal. Therefore you have the onus to prove your thesis. Your hypothesis is considered quackery, scientific racism and pseudoscience that is well out of the mainstream of scientific and academic thought. So the ball is in your court. Prove it. For example, can you identify any intellectually difficult activity that one race can perform that other race cannot perform? Brain surgery? Rocket science? Quantum physics? Or do you have evidence that some races are lacking in intelligence genes that other races have in greater abundance?

Put up or shut up.

So the second presumption of the poster "TruthIsHoly" is his giving us the impression that the races must be equals without offering us any proof that it is so. His first presumption is his selection of a politically pushy name. Truth might be holy, but there are no holy sources of truth, including his keyboard or the studies he quotes from. All valid experiments are repeatable, truth is known only with some degree of confidence or other, and nobody ever has the "holy" final word on what the truth is.

You want me to prove that races are equal? No, you prove that races are unequal. I find it deliciously ironic that the people arguing for white supremacy in intelligence are usually not very intelligent themselves. Black people are certainly capable of genius, super genius and extraordinary intelligence. Black people are able to perform any function that whites and Asians can perform regardless of how intellectually rigorous that function is. Despite all of this direct evidence from the real world, you are insisting that black people are less intelligent. Since you are challenging vast tides of irrefutable and incontrovertible evidence, you have the burden of proof. I want real proof that enjoys mainstream scientific and academic consensus. Don't give me Rushton, Lynn and Jensen. Those are widely debunked pseudoscientic quacks that no one takes seriously other than a tiny fringe of white racists.

Let us observe that it is not at all unreasonable for human intelligence to correlate well with brain size, or with the ratio of brain mass to body mass. We can more-or-less see that in human evolution, and we see it in primates other than humans, and we see it in mammals generally.

The correlation between brain size and intelligence is extremely weak. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no evidence that black people have smaller brains on average than any other race. You have evidence? Post it. Cadaver studies? Those are irretrievably flawed and they've been debunked by such eminent scientists as Phillip Tobias:

A critical review is given of those factors which may be accompanied by variations in brain weight, viz. sex, body size, age of death, nutritional state in early life, source of the sample, occupational group, cause of death, lapse of time after death, temperature after death, anatomical level of severance, presence or absence of cerebrospinal fluid, of meninges, and of blood-vessels. Valid comparisons between the brain-weight of human populations should take all, or several, of these variables into account; however, published studies have not done so, despite claims to the contrary. The ideal sample is from subjects who have died suddenly without prior disease: while three such samples are on record for Europeans, none has been recorded for Negroes. The brain-weight of healthy Negroes is not known. Most published interracial comparisons are invalid. The histological, chemical and functional counterparts of big and small brains in modern man are not known. Published interracial comparisons of thickness of the cerebral cortex and, particularly, of its supragranular layer, are technically invalid: there is no acceptable proof that the cortex of Negroes is thinner in whole, or in any layer, than that of Europeans. It is concluded that vast claims have been based on insubstantial evidence.

Let's also take cognizance of the fact that brain sizes might indeed vary racially in the same way that average skin coloring and average height do.

Black Africans express the greatest variability in skin coloring. Their skin tone shades range from nearly black to nearly white. I believe Africans also express the greatest variability in height, from the extremely tall Dinka people to Pygmies. You've unwittingly stumbled upon the fact that black Africans cannot be pigeonholed into some artificially contrived "Negroid" archetype given their tremendous variability in phenotypic traits. So there is no "black brain size." You'd have to conduct a comprehensive study comprising the multitudinous African ethnic groups in order to arrive at an average brain size for blacks. No such study has ever been done. But if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that blacks, on average, have the largest brains for the reasons I enumerated in an earlier post.

The claim of inequality among races isn't strange. Whether it is true or false is for an examination of relevant data to determine. But on its face it is an eminently reasonable statement.

So prove it. Why are you working so hard? Shouldn't such inequality, if it was real, be eminently provable and obvious? I'm 100% black. The notion that you're superior to me is laughable in the extreme. In fact all my life, when in the company of whites, if anybody was superior it was I.

In the United States, persons who are called "blacks" or "African-Americans" are about, on average, 25% white. That is to say, American blacks are commonly mulattoes of mixed white and black ancestry. Decades of psychometric study has provided ample information to estimate that the distribution of IQ in US-resident blacks is normal at 85±12.4, and that the distribution of IQ in US-resident whites is normal at 103±16.4.

This is complete nonsense that is thoroughly debunked by Richard Nisbett, a real scientist:

Why rely on such misleading and indirect findings when we have much more direct evidence about the basis for the I.Q. gap? About 25 percent of the genes in the American black population are European, meaning that the genes of any individual can range from 100 percent African to mostly European. If European intelligence genes are superior, then blacks who have relatively more European genes ought to have higher I.Q.’s than those who have more African genes. But it turns out that skin color and “negroidness” of features — both measures of the degree of a black person’s European ancestry — are only weakly associated with I.Q. (even though we might well expect a moderately high association due to the social advantages of such features).

During World War II, both black and white American soldiers fathered children with German women. Thus some of these children had 100 percent European heritage and some had substantial African heritage. Tested in later childhood, the German children of the white fathers were found to have an average I.Q. of 97, and those of the black fathers had an average of 96.5, a trivial difference.

If European genes conferred an advantage, we would expect that the smartest blacks would have substantial European heritage. But when a group of investigators sought out the very brightest black children in the Chicago school system and asked them about the race of their parents and grandparents, these children were found to have no greater degree of European ancestry than blacks in the population at large.

Most tellingly, blood-typing tests have been used to assess the degree to which black individuals have European genes. The blood group assays show no association between degree of European heritage and I.Q. Similarly, the blood groups most closely associated with high intellectual performance among blacks are no more European in origin than other blood groups.

Beyond that, I've already provided conclusive evidence in an earlier post that the most successful black people in the United States are, indeed, first and second generation Africans who have no trace of European admixture whatsoever. In fact they are vastly more successful than whites in terms of academic and occupational attainment.

The averages in those distributions were mentioned in "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" by Rushton and Jensen, published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. The standard deviations were taken from a 1963 study by Kennedy, Van de Riet, and White.

Notice all the "experts" you've introduced to this debate are/were avowed racists who have been censured by their peers for sloppy, fraudulent and deceptive research. They are/were on the payroll of the neo-Nazi Pioneer Fund. What did you expect their findings to say? Do you think the Pioneer Fund would continue to pay them if they didn't toe the party line?

Do you have any legitimate and credible scientists or academics who support this racialist ideology? Is it taught in schools? Does mainstream science and academia believe that there is a genetically influenced racial hierarchy in intelligence? Of course not. Yet you're asking those who hold the opposing (mainstream) view to prove you wrong. LMAO.

It has been observed that the intelligence of mulatto persons are, in the usual run of such people, correlated positively with their percentage of white ancestry.

Wrong. See above.

And so, prior to any actual inspection of Richard Lynn's African data, his findings would seem consistent with an extrapolation toward the percentages of racial blackness that we can find in Africa.

According to Richard Lynn Africans are clinically retarded. Yet we know based on real world evidence that this is absurd. Africans master multiple languages and handle their affairs like normal, well-adjusted people. Even teenage Africans armed with little more than a Yahoo account are able to outsmart and clean out the bank accounts of the very best and brightest white people in America and Europe. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. They've outsmarted and cleaned out white medical doctors, government officials, presidents of banks and CEO's of various companies. How can "imbeciles" outsmart the allegedly superior race?

Now, I notice that objections have been made regarding Lynn's methodology; specifically, he's been accused of cherry-picking. However, might I suggest that cherry-picking is something that Lynn's critics would prefer to do? To put it plainly, I suspect that perhaps Richard Lynn refrained from doing any cherry-picking, such as would have enhanced the proportion of his test subjects who were above the average in the various African countries included in his study, however those who complain about Lynn's findings would have done just that thing, if they had conducted a similar study. I think that Lynn took them as they came, in a true random sample, and that the findings that resulted have displeased those who think that certain of their beliefs are "holy truths."

Lynn is a joker and a fraud. The entire cottage industry of race realism, scientific racism, white nationalism (or whatever you want to call it) is driven precisely by cherrypicked correlations and confirmation bias. You and your heroes simply dismiss or reject any piece of information that doesn't comport with the ideology you are trying to advance. It certainly not a search for truth, because your minds are closed shut to countervailing evidence.

Oh, and I know you'll trot out the timeworn adoption study bullshit. So allow me to preempt that now. This is Nisbett from the same article as above:

The closest thing to direct evidence that the hereditarians have is a study from the 1970s showing that black children who had been adopted by white parents had lower I.Q.’s than those of mixed-race children adopted by white parents. But, as the researchers acknowledged, the study had many flaws; for instance, the black children had been adopted at a substantially later age than the mixed-race children, and later age at adoption is associated with lower I.Q.

A superior adoption study — and one not discussed by the hereditarians — was carried out at Arizona State University by the psychologist Elsie Moore, who looked at black and mixed-race children adopted by middle-class families, either black or white, and found no difference in I.Q. between the black and mixed-race children. Most telling is Dr. Moore’s finding that children adopted by white families had I.Q.’s 13 points higher than those of children adopted by black families. The environments that even middle-class black children grow up in are not as favorable for the development of I.Q. as those of middle-class whites.

A bit off topic, but I will suggest that intelligence is maintained in all Homo sapien populations because intelligence is useful in any environment where the food supply permits extra brain growth.If we ever get evidence that—environmental influences equal—African genetics are generally more favorable to the development of intelligence, I would pose the hypothesis that it's due to (a) gene flow throughout a larger population (the population of Africa) allowing for more rapid evolution or (b) restrictive dietary options in the colder European climates.

To begin with, race is a myth. So, without getting all researchy and endlessly giving air time to this silly question, we simply have to remember we are part of the same species, meaning when we all breed together our progeny too can breed. I think that settles it.

I lived my early years in a part of the world where there were very few Blacks. I later relocated to the southeastern USA, where the population is about half Black. I saw above that one study showed an average IQ of about 85 for blacks and 103 for whites, with IQs of mixed corresponding to their mixture. Remember, those numbers are averages. There was a wide range in each race. The results of that study have been rejected by some who claim that ALL "races" are equal, not just Black/White. I now live in a neighborhood that is about equally distributed racially, and associate with each race . I had been here only a short time when I noticed the very obvious deference in the IQs, as shown by the study mentioned before. One has but to look and listen with a fair mind to notice the difference. My 2$ worth. (Inflation) Dr. Jim.

Egad wrote:I lived my early years in a part of the world where there were very few Blacks. I later relocated to the southeastern USA, where the population is about half Black. I saw above that one study showed an average IQ of about 85 for blacks and 103 for whites, with IQs of mixed corresponding to their mixture. Remember, those numbers are averages. There was a wide range in each race. The results of that study have been rejected by some who claim that ALL "races" are equal, not just Black/White. I now live in a neighborhood that is about equally distributed racially, and associate with each race . I had been here only a short time when I noticed the very obvious deference in the IQs, as shown by the study mentioned before. One has but to look and listen with a fair mind to notice the difference. My 2$ worth. (Inflation) Dr. Jim.

No one cares about your personal anecdotes. Do you know how many dumb whites I've come across? I don't jump from that to the conclusion that whites are generally stupid. Besides, your perceptions of those blacks are colored by your prejudices. And let's not forget 400 years of slavery and oppression. Surely even you can see how that might negatively impact the adaptation of black people to certain of the norms of the majority culture (which you are incorrectly perceiving as lack of native intelligence).

What's more, your mixed-race theory is a well-known canard. First of all, American blacks are already mixed. Secondly, there's absolutely no evidence that higher levels of white admixture in blacks contributes to higher intelligence. In fact the lack of such evidence is precisely one of the points used to debunk the idea of racial hierarchies in intelligence. That is, if whites are smarter than blacks then we should expect black-white hybrids to be more intelligent than pure blacks, and they're not. In fact in my post prior to this one I quote Richard Nisbett discussing this very matter. It's highlighted in blue. I suggest you read it.

The first edition of The Mismeasure of Man appeared in 1981 and was quickly praised in the popular press as a definitive refutation of 100 years of scientific work on race, brain-size and intelligence. It sold 125,000 copies, was translated into 10 languages, and became required reading for undergraduate and even graduate classes in anthropology, psychology, and sociology. The second edition is not truly revised, but rather only expanded, as the author claims the book needed no updating as any new research would only be plagued with the same philosophical errors revealed in the first edition. Thus it continues a political polemic, whose author engages in character assassination of long deceased scientists whose work he misrepresents despite published refutations, while studiously witholding from his readers fifteen years of new research that contradicts every major scientific argument he puts forth. Specific attention in this review are given to the following topics: (1) the relationship between brain size and IQ, (2) the importance of the scientific contributions of Sir Francis Galton, S. G. Morton, H. H. Goddard, and Sir Cyril Burt, (3) the role of early IQ testers in determining U.S. immigration policy, (4) The Bell Curve controversy and the reality of g, (5) race/sex/social class differences in brain size and IQ, (6) Cesare Lombroso and the genetic basis of criminal behavior, (7) between-group heritabilities, inter-racial adoption studies, and IQ (8) why evolutionary theory predicts group differences, and (9) the extent to which Gould's political ideology has affected his scientific work...........J. PHILIPPE RUSHTONDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of Western OntarioLondon, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2

Thank you for the enlightening post. What you have posted resonates with my observations and personal experiences. I am white, and I have lived very closely with other races in a wide variety of circumstances.